TY - JOUR
T1 - Molecular phylogenies map to biogeography better than morphological ones
AU - Oyston, Jack
AU - Wilkinson, Mark
AU - Ruta, Marcello
AU - Wills, Matthew
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Tim Astrop for useful discussions and suggestions related to plotting the data as well as Tamás Székely, Polly Russell and Catherine Klein for useful discussions. J.W.O., M.R. and M.A.W.’s work was funded by the John Templeton Foundation grants 61408 and 43915. M.A.W.’s work was funded by BBSRC grants BB/K015702/1 and BB/K006754/1, as well as BBSRC studentship 1923592.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).
PY - 2022/5/31
Y1 - 2022/5/31
N2 - Phylogenetic relationships are inferred principally from two classes of data: morphological and molecular. Currently, most phylogenies of extant taxa are inferred from molecules and when morphological and molecular trees conflict the latter are often preferred. Although supported by simulations, the superiority of molecular trees has rarely been assessed empirically. Here we test phylogenetic accuracy using two independent data sources: biogeographic distributions and fossil first occurrences. For 48 pairs of morphological and molecular trees we show that, on average, molecular trees provide a better fit to biogeographic data than their morphological counterparts and that biogeographic congruence increases over research time. We find no significant differences in stratigraphic congruence between morphological and molecular trees. These results have implications for understanding the distribution of homoplasy in morphological data sets, the utility of morphology as a test of molecular hypotheses and the implications of analysing fossil groups for which molecular data are unavailable.
AB - Phylogenetic relationships are inferred principally from two classes of data: morphological and molecular. Currently, most phylogenies of extant taxa are inferred from molecules and when morphological and molecular trees conflict the latter are often preferred. Although supported by simulations, the superiority of molecular trees has rarely been assessed empirically. Here we test phylogenetic accuracy using two independent data sources: biogeographic distributions and fossil first occurrences. For 48 pairs of morphological and molecular trees we show that, on average, molecular trees provide a better fit to biogeographic data than their morphological counterparts and that biogeographic congruence increases over research time. We find no significant differences in stratigraphic congruence between morphological and molecular trees. These results have implications for understanding the distribution of homoplasy in morphological data sets, the utility of morphology as a test of molecular hypotheses and the implications of analysing fossil groups for which molecular data are unavailable.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85131001334&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s42003-022-03482-x
DO - 10.1038/s42003-022-03482-x
M3 - Article
VL - 5
JO - Communications Biology
JF - Communications Biology
SN - 2399-3642
IS - 1
M1 - 521
ER -